Improvement in apparatus for forcing liquids by the expansion and condensation of gases



JAMES s. BALDWIN.

Improvement in Accumulators for Liquids under pressure.

v UNITED STATES PATENT QFFICE.

JAMES S. BALDWIN, OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.

IMPROVEMENT IN APPARATUS FOR FORCING LIQUIDS BY THE EXPANSION ANDCUNDENSATIDN 0F GASES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 121,482, dated December5, 1871.

To all whom it may concern:

Examples of the former kind are found in the use of an elevatedreservoir, and in the accumulator of Armstrong with its weightedplunger, while of the latter We have a familiar example in theair-chamber of a pump as well as in more complicated forms of apparatusin which a reservoir of compressed air is employed. My accumulatordiffers from these, and its novelty consists in the use, as a recipientof the power stored up, of a gas capable of being condensed to theliquid state. A well-known property of such gases is the uniform tensionthey maintain while the process of liquefaction is going on, thetemperature remaining constant, while if the space in the containingvessel is increased by the withdrawal of a piston or in any other waytheliquid gas will volatilize and follow up said piston with a uniformpressure.

The manner in which this property is employed can be best explained bydirect reference to the drawing.

The gas, preferably carbonic-acid gas, is forced, by any suitablecondensing-pump, through the pipe 0 and check-valve B to theoylinderAuntil the point of liquefaction has been reached and a certainamount of the liquid gas has accumulatedsay one-fifth the total capacityof A. E is a piston suitably packed, the prolongation of whichconstitutes the plunger F, fitted to the cylinder G. H is a pipe,through which the liquid to be accumulatedassumed to be in this case anoil-is forced either by a pump or by any other apparatus capable ofdelivering it under pressure. Thus the entry of said oil will cause theplunger or ram F and its attached piston E to rise, condensing the gasin A, as already described, and consequently meeting a uniform retherequisite amount of heat without any variation in temperature sufficienttical workin g of the machine.

The cylinders A and G in actual practice Will have their proportionatecapacities determined by the requirements of the case at hand, and willbe rigidly connected with each other by a frame such as is usuallyemployed for such purposes. This frame is omitted from the drawing forfacility of illustration. When A has once received its full charge ofgas it need not be again replenished until, through leakage, the supplyis reduced below working requirements.

I claim as my invention- The accumulator, constructed and operated, asdescribed, by means of carbonic-acid or equivalent gas in both thegaseous and liquid state, substantially as set forth.

JAMES S. BALDWIN.

to affect the prac- Witnesses MORRIS B. LINDsLEY,

GHAs. H. SKINNER. (118)

